A group campaigning for better governance yesterday demanded parliamentarians push the government to allow Cambodians living abroad to vote, while also calling for stricter enforcement of migration legislation inside the country.

In a petition delivered to the National Assembly by two of its representatives, the Victory Intellectualist Standard Association called for a new law permitting the more than one million estimated Cambodians employed abroad to vote in upcoming elections.

Victory director Rose Sarum said the group was also pushing for tougher enforcement of the country’s migration law after recent statements from members of the National Election Committee that any person with a Cambodian ID card would be allowed to register to vote, whether they spoke Khmer or not.

Last week, the department of immigration announced that tens of thousands of foreign nationals had residency or citizenship documents with “irregularities”.

Sarum, who claimed his group’s petition garnered 10,000 signatures, said this constituted a “flaw” in the law that the assembly needed to address.